the ages of thirteen to fifteen. A Paris statute required them to
be at least fourteen, and naturally many were older. Many of these
students were beneficed, and boys were canons or even rectors of parish
churches. In this capacity they obtained leave of absence to study in
the universities, and so it was quite common at one time for rectors
and ecclesiastics of all ages to appear in the rôle of university
students. At the close of the fourteenth century, in the University of
Prague, in the law school alone there appeared on the list of students
one bishop, one abbot, nine archdeacons, 290 canons, 187 rectors, and
still other minor ecclesiastics. At one time in the University of
Bologna, in the registry of German corps, more than half the students
were church dignitaries. Sad to relate, many of these clerical students
were among the most disorderly and troublesome of the academic
population, the statutes vainly prescribing that they should sit "as
quiet as girls;" while, as Rashdall says, "even spiritual thunders had
at times to be invoked to prevent them from shouting, playing, and
interrupting."
Considering the youthfulness of what we may call the freshmen, as many
of them went up to the universities at the early age already mentioned,
it is not strange that we hear of "fetchers" or "carriers" or
"bryngers," who were detailed to escort them home; but we must remember
that the roads were dangerous in those days, and that protection of
some kind was necessary even for men. Proclamations against bearing
arms usually made exceptions in favor of students travelling to or
from the university. Students, many of them, lived in halls, or, as
we would say now, dormitories, and one of them assumed the rôle of
principal, or was delegated to exercise certain authority. Quite often
this was the man who made himself responsible for the rent, whose
authority came only from the voluntary consent of his fellow-students,
or who was elected by them.
When it came to the matter of discipline, the good old-fashioned
birchen rod was not an unknown factor in university government. There
seems to have been always a certain relationship between classic
studies and corporal punishment. In mediæval university records
allusions to this relationship began about the fifteenth century. In
Paris, about this time, when there were so many disgraceful factional
fights, the rectors and proctors had occasionally to go to the
colleges and halls and personally superintend the chastisement of
the young rioters. We find also in the history of the University of
Louvain that flogging was at one time ordered by the Faculty of Arts
for homicide or other grave outrages. It is worth while to recall
for a moment how grave offences were dealt with in those days. At
the University of Ingolstadt one student killed another in a drunken
quarrel, and was punished by the university by the confiscation of
his scholastic effects and garments, but he was not even expelled. At
Prague a certain Master of Arts assisted in cutting the throat of a
friar bishop, and was actually expelled for the deed. In those days
drunkenness was rarely treated as a university offence. The penalties
which were inflicted for the gravest outrages and immoralities were
for the greater part puerile in the extreme. In most serious cases
excommunication or imprisonment were the penalties, while lesser
offences were punished by postponement of degree, expulsion from the
college, temporary banishment from a university town, or by fines.
In Leipzig, in 1439, the fine of ten new groschen was provided for the
offense of lifting a stone or missile with a view of throwing it at
a master, but not actually throwing it; whereas the act of throwing
and missing increased the penalty to eight florins, while successful
marksmanship was still more expensive. Later statutes made distinction
between hitting without wounding and wounding without mutilation,
expulsion being the penalty for actual mutilation. With the beginning
of the sixteenth century the practice of flogging the very poorest
students appears to have been introduced. During these Middle Ages
they had a peculiar fashion of expiating even grave offences. For
example, at the Sorbonne, if a fellow should assault or cruelly beat
a servant he was fined a measure of good wine--not for the benefit of
the servant, but for all the culprit's fellow-students. Those were the
days, too, when trifling lapses incurred each its own penalty. A doctor
of divinity was fined a quart of wine for picking a pear off a tree in
the college garden or forgetting to shut the chapel door. Clerks were
fined for being very drunk and committing insolences when in that
condition. The head cook was fined for not putting salt in the soup.
Most of these fines being in the shape of liquors or wines, I imagine
that the practice was more general because the penalty was shared in by
all who were near.
With lapse of time the statutes of the German universities gradually
grew stricter until they became very minute and restrictive in the
matter of unacademical pleasures. A visit to the tavern, or even to
the kitchen of the college or hall, became a university offence. There
were statutes against swearing, against games of chance, walking abroad
without a companion, being out after eight in the winter or nine in the
summer, making odious comparisons of country to country, etc. This was
particularly true of the English universities, where a definite penalty
was imposed for every offence, ranging from a quarter of a penny for
not speaking Latin to six shillings eight pence for assault with
effusion of blood.
The matter of constantly speaking Latin led to a system of espionage,
by which a secret system of spies, called "_lupi_" or wolves, was
arranged; these were to inform against the "_vulgarisantes_," or those
offenders who persisted in speaking in their mother tongue.
It was the students of those days who set the example and the fashion
of initiating, or, as we would say now, of hazing the newcomers. This
custom of initiation, in one form or another, seems to have an almost
hoary antiquity. As Rashdall puts it, three deeply rooted instincts of
human nature combine to put the custom almost beyond suppression. It
satisfies alike the bullying instinct, the social instinct, and the
desire to find at once the excuse and the means for a carouse. In the
days of which we are speaking the _Bejaunus_, which is a corruption of
the old French _Bec-jaune_ (or yellow bill), as the academic fledgling
was called, had to be bullied and coaxed and teased in order to be
welcomed as a comrade, and finally his "jocund advent" had to be
celebrated by a feast furnished at his own expense. A history of the
process of initiating would furnish one of the most singular chapters
in university records. At first there were several prohibitions
against all _bejaunia_, for the unfortunate youth's limited purse ill
afforded even the first year's expenses. As the years went by certain
restrictions were imposed, and by the sixteenth century the _depositio
cornuum_ had become in the German universities a ceremony almost equal
in importance to matriculation. The callow country youth was supposed
to be a wild beast who must be deprived of his horns before he could
be received into refined society in his new home. This constituted the
_depositio_ for which he was supposed to arrange with his new masters,
at the same time begging them to keep expenses as low as possible.
Soon after he matriculated he was visited in his room by two of the
students, who would pretend to be investigating the source of an
abominable odor.
This would be subsequently discovered to be due to the newcomer
himself, whom they would take at first to be a wild boar, but later
discovery to be that rare creature known as a _bejaunus_, a creature
of whom they had heard, but which they had never seen. After chaffing
comments about his general ferocious aspect it would be suggested,
with marked sympathy, that his horns might be removed by operation,
the so-called _depositio_. The victim's face would then be smeared
with some preparation, and certain formalities would be gone through
with--clipping his ears, removal of his tusks, etc. Finally, in fear
lest the mock operation should be fatal, the patient would be shriven;
one of the students, feigning himself a priest, would put his ear to
the dying man's mouth and then repeat his confession. The boy was
made to accuse himself of all sorts of enormities, and finally it was
exacted as penance that he should provide a sumptuous banquet for his
new masters and comrades.
This latter ceremony consisted of a procession headed by a master in
academic dress, followed by students in masquerading costume. Certain
further operative procedures were then gone through with, the beast was
finally dehorned and his nose held to the grindstone, while a little
later his chin was adorned with a beard made of burnt cork, and his
wounded sensibilities assuaged by a dose of salt and wine. All this
constituted a peculiar German custom, although some means of extorting
money or bothering those who were initiated was practically universal.
In Germany this ceremony of _depositio_ seems to have led later to
the bullying and fagging of juniors by seniors, that gave rise to
indignities while at the same time it more than exceeded in brutality
anything of which we have read in the English grammar schools. These
excesses reached their highest in the seventeenth century, and for
a long time defied all efforts of both government and university
authorities to suppress them.
In southern France this initiation assumed somewhat different form.
Here the freshman was treated as a criminal, and had to be tried for
and released by purgation from the consequences of his original sin.
At Avignon this purgation of freshmen was made the primary purpose
of a religious fraternity formed under ecclesiastical sanction, and
with a chapel in the Dominican church. (Rashdall). The preamble of
its constitution piously boasted that its object was to put a stop
to enormities, drunkenness and immorality, but its practices were at
extreme variance with its avowed purposes.
The matter of academical dress may interest for a moment. During
the Middle Ages there was for the undergraduate nothing which could
be properly called academic dress. In the Italian universities the
students wore a long black garment known as a "cappa." In the Parisian
universities every student was required by custom or statute to wear a
tonsure and a clerical habit, such "indecent, dissolute, or secular"
apparel as puffed sleeves, pointed shoes, colored boots, etc., being
positively forbidden; and so the clothes of uniform color and material,
like those worn in some of the English charitable schools, have been
the result of the uniform dress of a particular color which mediæval
students were supposed to wear, and which indicated that at the time
they were supposed to be clerks. At one time the so-called Queen's Men
in Oxford University were required to wear bright red garments, and
differences of color and ornament still survive in the undergraduate
gowns of Cambridge. While the students usually wore dark-hued material,
the higher officials of the universities wore more and more elaborate
garments, until the rector appeared in violet or purple, perhaps with
fur trimmings. The hoods, which are still worn to-day, were at one
time made of lamb's wool or rabbit's fur, silk, such as those which we
wear, coming in as a summer alternative at the end of the fourteenth
century. The birretta, or square cap, with a tuft on the top, in lieu
of the modern tassel on top of the square cap, was a distinctive badge
of membership, while doctors and superior officers were distinguished
by the red or violet color of their birrettas.
This so-called "philosophy of clothes" throws much light upon the
relation of the Church to the universities, as well as on the use
and misuse of the term "clericus." That a man was a _clericus_ in
the Middle Ages did not necessarily imply that he had taken even the
lowest grade of clerical orders. It simply implied that he was a
clerk, i. e., a student. Even the wearing of a so-called clerical
dress was rather in order that the wearer might enjoy exemption from
secular courts and the privileges of the clerical order. The lowest
of the people even took the clerical tonsure simply in order to get
the benefit of clergy; and to become a clerk was at one time almost
equivalent to taking out a license for the commission of murder or
outrage with comparative immunity. Nevertheless, the relation between
clerkship and minor orders is still quite obscure.
It is quite evident that students of those days were not worked as
hard as those of the present day. Three lectures a day constituted a
maximum of work of this kind, beside which there were disputations
and "resumpciones," which seem to have corresponded very much to the
quizzes of to-day, scholars being examined or catechised, sometimes
even by the lecturer himself. Gradually supplementary lectures were
introduced, but there was a period during which the university seemed
to decline and decay rather than the reverse, when intellectual life
was not nearly as active and studies not nearly as closely pursued. In
the days of Thomas Aquinas intellectual vigor was at its highest, but
in the fifteenth century there was a distinct falling off.
During these centuries, too, it was not unusual that students attended
mass or religious services before going to lectures. This practice grew
during the latter portion of the Middle Ages. Attendance was not,
however, compulsory. Even at Oxford the statutes of the New College
were the first which required daily attendance at mass. In those days
lectures began at six in the morning in summer, and sometimes as late
as seven in the winter mornings. There is every reason to think that
often lectures were given in the darkness preceding dawn, and even
without artificial light. It should be said that these lectures were
sometimes three hours in duration, and hence it might appear that three
such lectures a day were about all that could be expected of a student.
The standard of living for the mediæval student was not always so bad
as has been sometimes represented. University students then, as now,
were recruited from the highest as well as the poorest social classes,
and the young sons of princely families often had about them quite an
establishment. At the lower end of the university social ladder was
the poor scholar who was reduced to begging for his living or becoming
a servant in one of the colleges. In Vienna and elsewhere there were
halls whose inmates were regularly sent out to beg, the proceeds of
their mendicancy being placed in a common chest. Very poor scholars
were often granted licenses to beg by the chancellor. This was not
regarded as a particular degradation, however, because the example of
the friars had made begging comparatively respectable. Those who would
have been ashamed to work hard were not ashamed to beg.
This custom, for that matter, is by no means yet abandoned. When
I was first studying in Vienna, in 1882, I remember a young German
nobleman who was reduced to such an extent that he lived absolutely on
the charity of others. He kept a little book in which he had it set
down that on such a day such a person had promised to give him so much
toward his support, and he called regularly on his list of supporters,
and almost daily, in order that the gulden which they had promised him
might be forthcoming.
There is the good old story you know, also, of the three students who
were so poor that they had but one cappa or gown between them, in which
they took turns to go to lectures. In the small university towns,
where thousands of students gathered together during a part of the
year--where means of carrying food were scanty, and food itself not
abundant--it is not strange that student fare was often of the most
meagre sort.
The matter of food was not the only hardship of student life in those
days about which we are talking. At that time such a thing as a fire
in a lecture-room was unknown, there being no source of warmth or
comfort, save, perhaps, straw or rushes upon the floor. The winter
in the northern university towns must have been severe, but it is
not likely that either in the lecture-room or in his own apartments
did the student have any comfort from heat. This was true to such an
extent that they often sought the kitchens for comfort. In Germany
it was even one of the duties of the head of the college to inspect
the college-rooms lest the occupants should have supplied themselves
with some source of heat. In some places, however, there was a common
hall or combination room in which a fire was built in cold weather.
You must remember, also, that glass windows were an exceptional luxury
until toward the close of the period under discussion. In Padua the
windows of the schools were made of linen. In 1643 a glass window was
for the first time introduced into the Theological School at Prague.
In 1600 the rooms inhabited by some of the junior fellows at Cambridge
were still unprovided with glass windows. Add to these hardships the
relative expense of lights, when the average price of candles was
nearly two pence per pound, and you will see that the poorest student
could not afford to study by artificial light. Some of the senior
students may have had bedsteads, but the younger students slept mostly
upon the floor. In some places there were cisterns or troughs of lead,
or occasionally pitchers and bowls were provided, but usually the
student had to resort to the public lavatory in the hall.
Along with these hardships consider the amusements of this period,
which were for the greater part conspicuous by their absence. Statutes
concerning amusements were often more stringent than those concerning
crime or vice. These were essentially military times, and tournaments,
hunting, and hawking, which were enjoyed by the upper social classes,
were considered too expensive and distracting for university students,
and were consequently forbidden. "Mortification of the flesh" was
the cry of those days, as even now among some religious fanatics.
Even playing with a ball or bat was at times forbidden, along with
other "insolent games." A statute of the sixteenth century speaks of
tennis and fives as among "indecent games" whose introduction would
create scandal in and against the college. Games of chance and playing
for money were also forbidden; nevertheless, they were more or less
practised. Even chess enjoyed a bad reputation among the mediæval
moralists, and was characterized by a certain bishop of Winchester
as a "noxious, inordinate, and unhonest game." Dancing was rather
a favorite amusement, but was repressed as far as possible, since
the celebrated William of Wykeham found it necessary to prohibit
dancing and jumping in the chapel. Apparently, then, in those days a
good student amused himself little, if at all, and had to find his
relaxation in the frequent interruptions caused by church holidays. At
St. Andrew's, in Scotland, however, two days' holiday was allowed at
carnival time expressly for cock-fighting. On the evenings of festival
days entertainments were occasionally provided by strolling players,
jesters, or mountebanks, who were largely patronized by students.
Altogether, it is not strange that students in those days fell into
dissolute habits, many having to be expelled or punished. We can even
understand how some of them actually turned highwaymen and waylaid
their more peaceful brothers as they approached the universities
with money for the ensuing season. In the archives of the University
of Leipzig there are standard forms of proclamation against even
such boyish follies as pea-shooting, destruction of trees and crops,
throwing water out of the window upon passers-by, shouting at night,
wearing of disguises, interfering with a hangman in the execution of
his duty, or attending exhibitions of wrestling, boxing, and the like.
Evidently, then, university life had its exceedingly wild side. One
needs only to recall the history of the famous Latin Quarter in Paris
to be convinced of this. This was the students' quarter in the old
city of Paris as extended by Philip Augustus across the river. Paris
then was surrounded by a cordon of monasteries, whose abbots exercised
jurisdiction over their surrounding districts. Just to the west of the
student quarter stood the great Abbey of St. Germain. Between the monks
of this monastery and the students there were frequent conflicts, and
it is recorded that in 1278, for instance, a pitched battle occurred
between the monks, under their provost, on one side, and the unarmed
and defenceless boys and masters, on the other, during which many were
badly wounded, and some mortally. The matter was finally carried to
court, and the monks were required to perform certain penances and
to pay certain fines. Their brutality, however, was not effectually
suppressed. In 1304 the Provost of Paris hanged and gibbetted a
student, and was punished therefor by the king; while the subsequent
history of Paris is one of constant conflict between students and the
clerical orders. On the other hand, the clerical tonsure in which the
Parisian scholar clothed himself enabled him to indulge in all kinds of
crime, without fear of that summary execution which would have been his
fate had he been merely an ordinary beggar.
Bibulousness was another striking characteristic of mediæval university
life. In those days they knew not tea nor coffee nor tobacco, but
spirituous liquors in some form were far from unknown to them. No
important event of life could be transacted without its drinking
accompaniment. At all exercises, public or private, wine was freely
provided, and many of the feasts and festivals which began with mass
were concluded with a drunken orgie.
You have observed that so far I have made frequent mention of clerical
matters. In truth, in northern Europe the Church included practically
all the learned professions, including the civil servants of the
government, the physicians, architects, secular lawyers, diplomatists,
and secretaries, who were all ecclesiastics. It is true that in order
to be a "clerk" it was not really necessary to take even minor orders,
but it was so easy for a king or bishop to reward his physician, his
lawyer, or his secretary by a monastic office rather than by a large
salary, that the average student, at least in the larger places, looked
to holy orders as his eventual destination. How much of insincerity and
hypocrisy there were among those reverend gentlemen thus constituted
you may imagine better than I can picture. The Reformation, as well as
the increasing corruption of the monastic orders, brought about changes
which were not rapid, but which became almost complete, and led finally
to the partial restoration of the ancient dignity of the early Church.